I love the opening scene of Contact

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

The noise of earth and as we move further away it gets quieter and I was picking out the LMC and SMC then Andromeda.

[seppysteve (Stephen)]

I love it too. Though I still wish they perfected the time scale for the sounds they used as they are way off.

Another great one, which is very old is this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

[Octane (Humayun)]

Every time the topic of that movie comes up, I always say that the opening scene was worth the price of entry to the cinema, alone.

H

[Baddad (Marty)]

Hi Warren,

I posted a thread on this movie on 13/9/12.

I did however miss some of the start. Since reading your thread I checked out the opening scene on Utube. Yes I agree it is quite clever.

Cheers

[bartman (Bart)]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

The noise of earth and as we move further away it gets quieter and I was picking out the LMC and SMC then Andromeda.

+1 Warren....love it too! They certainly thought this out.....

Originally Posted by Octane

Every time the topic of that movie comes up, I always say that the opening scene was worth the price of entry to the cinema, alone.

H

So wish I had watched this movie in the cinema.......

Cheers
Bartman

[seppysteve (Stephen)]

Though I love it, It still bugs me all the Bad science in that opening scene.
See Phil's analysis: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html

[Lee]

Originally Posted by seppysteve

...Though I still wish they perfected the time scale for the sounds they used as they are way off.

That has always bugged me.... I'm sure Carl Sagan would have been disappointed just how far off that time scale was too!

[seppysteve (Stephen)]

Phil's review is worth reading. But as he points out, we should not actually hear the radio at all. Because we are moving faster than the speed of light in the animation.

"If you want to get really picky, we shouldn't hear radio at all: we're apparently moving faster than light in the sequence, and would leave radio waves behind us. If we heard them at all, they'd sound backwards!"

[Baddad (Marty)]

Hi Stephen,

we should not actually hear the radio at all. Because we are moving faster than the speed of light in the animation.

Artistic licence allows these errors. The entire scene is represntative of moving away from Earth and perhaps stepping through time slots backwards.

Its to create the atmospere early on of what the producers want. Personally I don't believe it to be erronous at all. If the producers were to make it accurate, the opening scene would lose its effect. Being too long or too fast Zooming out of the Solar system in the blink of an eye.

The effect that the producers wanted has been achieved. If they maintained the time ratio the scene would be out of the solar system too quickly to take in the planets passing by.

Alternatively if they maintained some approximation of the speed that the radio waves would reach each destination the scene would be too long. Several hours in the Solar System.

What they have done is an excellent representation. Critics pointing out the inaccurasies is fair enough but with fore-thought you would see it is the best way to achieve the effects. Analyse the two time frames you will see what I mean.

Cheers

[Osirisra (Ken)]

Watching Contact now

[bartman (Bart)]

Originally Posted by Baddad

Hi Stephen,

we should not actually hear the radio at all. Because we are moving faster than the speed of light in the animation.

Artistic licence allows these errors. The entire scene is represntative of moving away from Earth and perhaps stepping through time slots backwards.

Its to create the atmospere early on of what the producers want. Personally I don't believe it to be erronous at all. If the producers were to make it accurate, the opening scene would lose its effect. Being too long or too fast Zooming out of the Solar system in the blink of an eye.

The effect that the producers wanted has been achieved. If they maintained the time ratio the scene would be out of the solar system too quickly to take in the planets passing by.

Alternatively if they maintained some approximation of the speed that the radio waves would reach each destination the scene would be too long. Several hours in the Solar System.

What they have done is an excellent representation. Critics pointing out the inaccurasies is fair enough but with fore-thought you would see it is the best way to achieve the effects. Analyse the two time frames you will see what I mean.

Cheers

Took the words right out of my mouth Marty
Sometimes we need to take the good with the bad.....
Thanks for putting into words what I couldn't
Cheers
Bartman
PS Ken ...Enjoy!!!!!!!!